Part 1 - More Trials ~ Almost completely unbearable!

~ Saturday, 29th July 2017…  Diary entries, letters and notes compiled into a number of blog posts and posted in Parts ~
 
The following Blog posts in (Parts) are written about one of the hardest trials I’ve been through in a long time.  I’m going to share it semi-diary style, because I would not remember much if I didn’t do it that way.  I have been longing to put my thoughts and feelings from this time down in writing on my blog… to help myself to put things into perspective and try make sense of it all… 
 
I actually marvel at how I’ve gotten through it all to today… maybe due to hanging onto shreds of hope and small moments of joy in-between the struggles… and most importantly, feeling the genuine care and love of others during this time, especially my children and sisters… but I have to say, that this trial period that I’ve had to face which is not even over yet, I truly believed was where I would “draw the line” because at times it felt too emotionally excruciating to bear… but somehow, I’m still here…
 
Someone recently asked, “If you had a choice between happiness and purpose, which would you choose?” and I responded:
 
I only experience fleeting moments of happiness… There is a deep underlying sadness within me most of the time due to multiple experiences of abuse and loss throughout my life with my mother even having tried to abort me before I was born. If it was not for a deep sense of responsibility towards a perceived real purpose for my life, I don’t believe I would be here today. I am truly grateful for those genuinely happy moments that I experience from time to time and my purpose that I believe in and continually reach for that gives my life so much meaning. Studying Logotherapy in my 50’s has literally been lifesaving and life-altering for the better for me. Being alive today, to still have the opportunity to live out my life’s purpose and to see it through to its’ completion, even without a lasting true sense of happiness in me, is to me, my greatest achievement and my victory. If I can live long enough to complete my work, I believe that I will someday "die happy"…
 
Saturday, 17th June ~ I wrote to friends:
 
PRAYERS NEEDED PLEASE... My youngest son came home with a temperature of 38.8c degrees last night and his pulse was racing at 104 beats a minute... he's coughing more than ever, and that's after being on two doses of antibiotics at the same time... sinus medication and cough syrup.  I can't help worrying myself sick that he could have abscesses in his lungs again... I can't go through such a nightmare again with him... my poor boy!  He's hardly sleeping also with all the coughing. Heavenly Father, please help my boy get better.
 
I took him to the doctor again in the morning.  I wanted to be there to make sure the doctor takes this seriously. The last one wouldn't listen to me over a two-week period when I kept asking for him to have x-rays done.  He just kept dosing my son with more and more stuff... and in the end, he finally sent him for x-rays and that's when they saw the huge abscesses on his one lung and 2/3 of that lung had to be removed as a result!  My son was only 23 years old at the time!
 
While my son was in the operating theatre having the infected portion of his lung removed, my fifth grandchild (fourth granddaughter), was being born... I received the good news of her birth whilst my daughter and I were sitting outside the theatre so worried about what was happening to my son.  He was in the theatre for about four hours longer than they said he would be…
 
Talk about a huge conflict of emotions!  Oh, my goodness me, it was such a hard time.  Please God, as his mother, I don't want to ever go through that again.
 
Sunday, 18th June:  Spent the day at my brother and sister in laws house with my family to celebrate Father’s Day with my dad.  Thankfully, my youngest son was already responding to the new medications he’d been put on, so he opted to come with us and we all had a wonderful day.  I love spending time with my family so much.
 
Tuesday, 20th June: The whole scare with my son’s lungs, with the flashbacks to that awful time outside of theatre waiting for news that he was ok, has left me with extreme anxiety… confused… not comfortable at all, but just getting on with life and hoping the anxiety will go soon...
 

• I developed a not too bad stress induced gout attack around that time also and was still struggling to get around on crutches.

 
 
~ Written:  1st July 2017 ~
 
I can’t remember much about Saturday 24th June at all.  I remember some of the week before, only because I’d recorded it in my diary. 
 
On Tuesday, 20th June, my dear mentor let me know that she had returned to her home town after a trip overseas, to the 21st World Congress of Logotherapy.  On her 2nd day at the congress, she suffered a broken collar bone in an accident.  Courageously, after seeking medical help and having her arm strapped in position until she could return home again, my mentor continued on to fulfill her important responsibilities at the congress, even with the debilitating struggle and excruciating pain she suffered as a result of the broken bone.  What an incredible inspiration she is to all who know and love her.  What I found inspiring, was that while she was presenting and doing what she went there to do, she says that she did not feel the pain, and it was only in-between that she struggled to rest comfortably and dress herself as a result of the agony she was experiencing.  Thankfully, others at the congress stepped in to help her wherever they could, so she was not alone.
 
Once home, and as a result of her recovery needs, my mentor was no longer able to travel again to South Africa to attend our Introductory and Intermediate student end of semester workshops planned for July, so those had to be postponed.  I became busier than usual, with e-mailing backwards and forwards to our students, trying to organize a new date that would suit us all for August.  I had not even received all the letters back re: August from the students, when we decided to rather meet in November instead… and that’s when it all became too much for me…
 
I found myself sinking into a depression, as I worried about my mentor.  I worried about her suffering and felt pained that I was not able to be there to help her and her husband during her recovery.  I felt helpless and frustrated by the vast distance that separated us.  Thankfully though, a part of me knew that I was exactly where I was meant to be, as I was so caught up in being there for our students, some of whom had already booked flights and places to stay, for their July workshop.  My efforts and emotions were very much caught up in reassuring and being a support to them as they faced the need to change their plans and bear the disappointment involved in the postponement of the workshops.  In the process of trying to and wanting to be there for everyone, I became thoroughly overwhelmed…
 
A part of my heart ached at the idea that kept repeating in my mind, that there would surely come a time, when my beloved mentor and friend would no longer be able to visit our country anymore to run our student’s workshops.  Her workload is far greater than my own and traveling long distances from home twice a year, is not only expensive, but also exhausting I am sure.  I know how dedicated she is to her students and her work, but at the same time, I have to now face the reality, that nothing lasts forever, and all good things come to an end eventually. 
 
I feel, that I am not ready for the day of saying goodbye for the last time to this great lady whose total acceptance of me has taken me to new heights and possibilities of “me”, that I never would have expected, or knew before were possible for my life. 
 
Indeed, my heart ached thinking about the possibility of that sad day gradually approaching.  I had not been this depressed for ages, but on hearing of my mentor’s accident, and having a sudden, unsettling and stressful overnight increase in my workload, I allowed my mind to play havoc with thoughts of possible impending loss and I found myself in tears on and off, with only the responsibilities involved in my work holding me together at that time.
 
21st June: I recorded in the evening…
Have you ever been so busy that in the end, you just can't think anymore and you shut down, because there's nothing left... well that's me right now... been working flat out since 04h30 today... I just don’t have the energy to keep going any longer...
 
I became very, very sad to the core of my being.
 
Thursday, 22nd June
I was so tired I went to sleep at 20h30... early for my youngest son and I these days.  At 02h30 I woke wide awake... my mind back on duty again!
 
By last night, I actually had oedema in my legs... something I have not had in months! It's incredible how my body reacts to whatever's going on in my mind...
 
And my (far-away) daughter in law, is back in hospital with her heart problem... God bless her. I pray that they will do what needs to be done and stop stringing her along like this at the risk of her life... I worry so much about her and the rest of my far-away family.
 
Whenever I need to make sense of a situation I am struggling with, I find myself writing a poem.  Somehow, I find relief in recording my inner-emotions externally in this way, as if they have somehow been saved on the outside, so that they don’t have to burn so much on the inside.  This poem was about the sense of loss I was already experiencing at the thought that my mentor might someday soon say that she would not be returning to South Africa anymore.
 
LOST POEM WRITTEN ~ 22nd June 2017 (explanation on the 25th June ~ Part 3)
 
Thank you for sharing with me…
~ Panayiota